Possible to Exclude Signatures from Search Results?

[platipus]

Searching the forums for specific equipment and other info oftentimes ends up with a lot of "noise" in the search results. A perfect example is looking for Heliocol solar panel info (but this issue is by no means limited to just that). When you search on Helicol, you will get what seems to be a priority sorting of posts with the search word in the posting subject, but eventually you also end up getting posts that only have the word in someone's signature section, regardless of the topic they were posting on which ends up not being useful.

I know it possible to search Subjects only, but this also ignores posts where the specific search term is only in the body of a post. Is there any way to get the forum search engine results to also ignore what is placed in signatures in a similar way to how the Subject only search works?


Thanks
plat.

 

[kimkats]

Plat I will tell Leebo about this and see what he has to say. He is our IT guy.

Kim

 

[Leebo]

How are you searching the site? Are you using the search box that takes you to Google or are you going into the "Advanced Search" just below it??

 

[platipus]

Advanced search usually.

Thanks!
plat.

 

[Leebo]

I'm not 100% sure if this is what you were looking for.......but lets give it a try.

Click on the Advanced Search option. Then select the "Posts" box in the Search Type field. Last type the search phrase you wish to look up and hit submit. This should only search the posts........and not include any signatures.

 

[platipus]

I'm not 100% sure if this is what you were looking for.......but lets give it a try.

Click on the Advanced Search option. Then select the "Posts" box in the Search Type field. Last type the search phrase you wish to look up and hit submit. This should only search the posts........and not include any signatures.

BINGO!

Something is different here though. It's what I was doing before (I swear), but I am getting far less results now and the keyword match in the signature section is not highlighting like the main body is. In fact I don't remember the keword even highlighting before..... Am I just losing my sanity here?


Thanks!!!

 

[pooldv]

Yep, that's what happens when you are building a pool!

Or Leebo slipped in an upgrade and didn't tell anyone. :-D

 

[platipus]

OK you know what, I am losing it. I was completely mis-remembering the Advanced search vs basic. When I first realized the search issue/problem, I was using Basic search. When I went to re-test it and made my original post asking about it, I switched into Advanced search and somehow was thinking I was using advanced before when I was really using basic search and didn't pay close enough attention to see that the results really were different. It's all good now. Confusing I know, but I see exactly what I did now.

Thanks!!